apostles, and were willing to embrace the offered salvation in Christ, were to be baptized. In the covenant of paradise they who believed God's Word, and would continue in His favour, and obtain the promise of eternal life, were to abstain from the forbidden tree.

The promise implied in the words of God is eternal life. It has been the constant belief of the Christian Church that Adam in paradise was in a state of probation; that, had he been faithful, after a time he would have undergone a change analogous to that which will take place in those who are still alive at the day of resurrection; and would without fear or pain have been translated to the bliss of heaven.

The learned Bishop Bull says: "The Church of God, if we may gather its judgment from the most approved doctors thereof in their several ages, hath constantly believed that paradise was to Adam a type of heaven, and that the neverending life of happiness promised to our first parents, if they had continued obedient and grown up to perfection in that economy wherein they were placed, should not have been continued in the earthly paradise, but only have commenced there, and been perpetuated in a higher state; that is to say, after such a trial of their obedience as would seem sufficient to the Divine wisdom, they should have been translated from earth to heaven." We will quote three only out of the catena of authorities cited by the Bishop in support of his statement.

Justin Martyr, in his Apology (A.D. 103—164), speaking of the creation of the world, delivers not his own private opinion, but the common sense of the Christians of his time, in these words: "We have been taught that He (viz., God), being good, did in the beginning make all things out of the unformed matter for the sake of men, who, if by their works they rendered themselves worthy of His acceptance, we presume should be favoured with His friendship,

and should reign together with Him, being made incorruptible and impassible."

Nay, the Bishop says the primitive Church was so certain of this truth that she inserted the article into her public offices and prayers, for in the liturgy of Clemens, the most ancient now extant, in the prayer of consecration of the Eucharist, we read these words concerning Adam: "When Thou broughtest him into the paradise of pleasure Thou gavest him free leave to eat of all the other trees, and forbadest him to taste of one only, for the hope of better things, that if he kept the commandments he might receive immortality as the reward of obedience."

And St. Athanasius expresses this belief of the primitive church in words which we extract for the sake of their clearness of statement: God "brought them, therefore (viz., Adam and Eve), into His paradise, and gave them a law, that if they should preserve the grace given them and continue obedient, they might enjoy in paradise a life without grief, sorrow, or care; besides that they had a promise of immortality in the heavens."

This primitive moral relation of Adam to God is commonly called the Covenant of Paradise, a phrase which, perhaps, needs a few words of comment.

The usual meaning of the word covenant is agreement; and the relations into which God has entered with man at various periods may be called covenants, since God has laid down. certain conditions which men are to fulfil, and has been pleased to bind Himself, as it were, by certain promises, "which He for His part will most surely keep and perform." But usually in men's covenants the two parties are equal and independent, and each possesses in his own right something which the other desires. In God's covenants with men the parties are not equal and independent; man is the

creature of God, and entirely dependent upon Him. God has much to give to man, but man has nothing to give to God which is equivalent. Man, therefore, cannot bargain with God-cannot stand upon conditions, and decline to enter into the covenant unless God accede to his terms.

Another idea of God's covenants with men is that they are conditional grants. An absolute king grants a province to one of his princes. He grants it on certain conditions of homage and tribute to be paid to his sovereign, and of equal justice and good government to be administered to the people of the province. So long as the prince observes these conditions, he will retain his great position; if he fail in the conditions, the sovereign may resume the province and punish the faulty governor. God's covenants are all of this kind, all acts of His royal bounty. His covenant with Adam was of this kind: He made him prince of this world, on condition of allegiance and good conduct, i.e., on condition of obedience and holiness.

The forbidden fruit was probably a token of the covenant. Kings and lords of old times granted lands on a peppercorn rent; the rent was an acknowledgment of dependence. The forbidden fruit seems to be simply an acknowledgment of dependence upon God. But can we suppose God, like some despotic Eastern king, to care that man should always be made to feel his dependence and always be under restraint? Yes. God being all wise and good, and desiring man's greatest good and happiness, might well devise some means by which man should always be reminded of his dependence, and always be practised in self-control. For, first, man is, as a matter of fact, dependent upon God; the creature is necessarily dependent upon the Creator: "in Him we live and move and have our being." We cannot exist of ourselves; there is only one self-existent Being; and there is no nobler basis of being for us than in God. There is no

grander object of our powers than God; the noblest object of our reason is God, His being, His works, and ways; there is no other being who can satisfy our affections than God; there is no higher wisdom than to conform our will to the Perfect Will; there is no greater happiness than to live in Him.

There was no indignity in man's being continually reminded of these relations. God had provided for man's dignity in giving him free will. Now He cares for his safety in teaching him his creaturely dependence. For it would seem that to seek an impossible independence is one of the dangers of free will. The sin of the angels seems to have been the endeavour to throw off this dependence; and man fell under the temptation to be independent of God, to be "as gods knowing good and evil."

The sign of man's dependence on God was no degrading badge of vassalage; it was the token of relations which made his nobleness and dignity-the token that he was not merely the highest creature in the world, who by his superior intelligence had acquired a mastery over the other creatures, and used them for his own gratification, but that he was God's vicegerent over the world; His representative to the creatures; ruling them, not at the caprice of his own imperfect will, but by a will which was voluntarily in accordance with the Perfect Will.

It was then for man's well-being that he should be constantly reminded by the forbidden fruit of the need of selfrestraint, the need of conforming his will to the will of God. It was no servitude—he was not compelled to do God's will; but his own dignity and happiness required that he should always, of his own accord, conform-not submit, but conform -his will to the Perfect Will. Therefore God commanded him, saying, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. ii. 17).

CHAPTER XII.

THE FALL.

THE fall of man from his state of eminence in paradise was not through any self-originated lapse from rectitude, but was brought about by the temptation of Satan.

This sends us back to consider the fall of Satan from his original holiness. And when we begin to consider the fall of the angels we are brought face to face with the question how evil was possible in the universe of an all-wise, almighty, and all-good God.

This is the question to which all our speculations in this direction come at last. It has engaged the thoughts of all thinkers who have tried to solve the vast and awful problem of human life; and we are obliged to confess that the problem is insoluble; we cannot answer the question, "What is evil, and whence comes it?"

66

One of our greatest modern metaphysicians tells us,* Against this immoveable barrier of the existence of evil the waves of philosophy have dashed themselves unceasingly since the birth of human thought, and have retired broken and powerless, without displacing the smallest fragment of the stubborn rock, without softening one feature of its dark and rugged surface."

If we say that the free will of the creature is the cause of evil, then the question comes, Why did not God so make the universe that the choice of His creatures could only lie between one good and another good-why did He leave it possible to choose evil?

* Dean Mansel, "Limits of Religious Thought," Lect. VII.